Former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who has entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president, has questioned the US policy of imposing sanctions on Russia. There are “better ways to get rapprochement” with Moscow, he said.

"I should think there would be better ways of getting a
rapprochement with Russia," Democratic presidential hopeful
Chafee, a fierce critic of rival frontrunner Hillary Clinton over
her 2002 vote on Iraq War, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

"They’re so important in the world,
and especially to the countries, the former Soviet Republics,
such as Ukraine,"said Chafee, who previously served
in the Senate as a Republican.

He added: "We need to wage peace in this world. That's our
responsibility. That's the charge that we're given with our
economic power that we have."

When asked how he would reshape relations with Russia and
President Vladimir Putin, Chafee said to start with the US needs
to learn from previous mistakes.

“Stop making mistakes that Secretary Clinton made when we
were trying to restart our relations with Russia and Sec. Clinton
presented the foreign minister with a symbolic gesture and they
got the Russian word wrong. It’s those types of mistakes that set
back a relationship – little symbolic mistakes.”

In 2009, the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented
her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, with a little gift meant
to highlight the Obama administration’s readiness “to press the
reset button” in relationships with Moscow. Instead of the
Russian word for “reset” (perezagruzka) the box featured a
different word – peregruzka, which translates as “overload” or
“overcharged.”

"You’ve got it wrong," Lavrov noted with a smile. The
grammatical gaffe created a stir in the media.

The carrot-and-stick policy in regard to
Russia has been considered unconstructive and ineffective by a
number of politicians and economists. A senior member of
Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Matthias Platzeck, told Die
Welt am Sonntag newspaper in May that among other things,
"The process of disintegration in the Middle East, in Iran,
Afghanistan and Syria can only be solved with Russia."

Greece revealed last month it was asked by the US to prolong
anti-Russia sanctions. Athens replied that Russia is a strategic
ally and the “sanction war” is causing it an estimated loss of €4
billion a year.

"I was asked to support the prolongation of the sanctions,
particularly in connection with Crimea. I explained the Ukrainian
issue was very sensitive for Greece as some 300,000 Greeks live
in Mariupol and its neighborhood, and they feel safe next to the
Orthodox Church," Defense Minister Panos Kammenos was cited
as saying on the Ministry of National Defense website.

Italian media also
previously reported that the sanctions have affected the
country’s economy, with trade turnover falling by 17 percent, and
the Italian economy losing 5.3 billion euros. Italian Foreign
Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in May that “Italy can’t afford to close the
doors to Russia”and“can’t cut ties” with Moscow. Gentiloni also told
La Stampa newspaper that Russia plays a major role in resolving
world crises.

European experts estimate that due to the sanctions, the West
lost €40 billion last year, which includes a €12 billion loss by
European farmers. Despite the economic difficulties that the
sanctions against Russia, imposed over its stance on the conflict
between Kiev and rebels in eastern Ukraine, have brought to the
EU, leaders gathered at the G7 meeting on Sunday called for even
tougher measures. Russia was expelled from the club last year in
protest over its support for the referendum in Crimea, where the
majority of residents voted for secession from Ukraine and in
favor of joining Russia.

According to a statement issued by
the White House after a one-on-one meeting between Angela Merkel
and Barack Obama in Bavaria, it was restated that the
“duration of
sanctions should be clearly linked to Russia’s full
implementation of the Minsk agreements and respect for Ukraine’s
sovereignty.”

Ahead of Obama's visit
to Germany, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated, however,
that the introduction of the sanctions on Russia has not brought
any positive results.

"I would acknowledge that
we have not yet seen the kind of change in behavior that we have
long sought now,"Earnest said in his daily press
briefing.

The Obama administration has maintained that the longer the
sanctions are in place, “the more of an economic bite they
take out of the Russian economy.” This, despite the fact a
number of EU members have been hit hard by Russian
counter-sanctions.

“I think these sanctions are affecting Europe much more as a
whole than was expected, and the others on the other side of the
Atlantic are not affected at all,” former Italian Foreign
Minister Franco Frattini told RT in November.

The Minsk-2 deal, reached on February 12, includes a requirement
to withdraw heavy weapons from the contact line and establish a
buffer zone. But tensions have been running high in eastern
Ukraine recently, leading to growing concerns that the fragile
ceasefire was on the verge of collapse.

The US State Department refused to acknowledge that the Kiev
authorities are violating the Minsk peace agreements, however,
turning a blind eye to daily OSCE reports that equally implicate
the government and the rebel forces. The Ukrainian General Staff
acknowledged last week that Kiev’s forces were using heavy
artillery that had previously been withdrawn from the frontline
under February’s Minsk peace deal.

Moscow, meanwhile, believes that the timing of the new tensions
is directly connected with the upcoming EU summit, which is to
take place in Brussels later this month.

"Yes, indeed, in the past Kiev had already heated up tensions
amid some large international events. This is the case, and now
we are seriously concerned about the next repetition of such
activity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week.

At the United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday,
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told its members
that he has noticed “frustration” with Kiev’s
“flagrant violation and blunt ignorance of the Minsk
agreements” among even those Western states that are
“loyal to Kiev.” The UN Security Council members urged
both sides in the Ukrainian conflict to exercise restraint and
uphold the ceasefire last week.

The conflict erupted in April 2014 after Kiev sent troops to the
Donetsk and Lugansk regions as local residents refused to
recognize the coup-imposed authorities in the capital. According
to the UN Human Rights Office, at least 6,116 people have been
killed and 15,474 wounded during a year of fighting.